Chinese teen sells kidney for iPhone and iPad

Alex Hofford/EPAA salesman and buyer examine an Apple iPad at an Apple store in Hong Kong, China. A 17-year-old Chinese schoolboy bought an iPad and an iPhone after selling one of his kidneys for 3,500 dollars to a gang organizing illegal transplants, state media reported today. Police arrested five people suspected of illegal organ trading after the teenager, identified only by the surname Wang, told his mother how he had paid for his new electronic goods, the China Daily newspaper reported.

BEIJING — Authorities have indicted five people in central China for involvement in illegal organ trading after a teenager sold one of his kidneys to buy an iPhone and an iPad.

The case has prompted an outpouring of concern that not enough is being done to guard against the negative impact of increasing consumerism in Chinese society, particularly among young people who have grown up with more creature comforts than the generations before them.

Prosecutors in the city of Chenzhou charged the suspects with intentional injury for organizing the removal and transplant of a kidney from a 17-year-old high school student surnamed Wang, the official Xinhua News Agency said late Friday.

A woman on duty Saturday at the Chenzhou Beihu District People's Procuratorate in Hunan province confirmed that prosecutors are handling the case and that the defendants are facing charges of intentional injury.

She refused to give her name and referred further questions to the city-level procuratorate's media office, where phone calls rang unanswered.